Daily Yellowstone journal., 1887-05-31
The FEAST OF SAN JOSE.


Ilaxcala's Strange Customs-Her Peoples
Tranquil. Easy Flowing Lives.
On Saturday was the feast of San Jose
(St. Joseph, and the parish church Of
Tlaxcala was adorned within and with
out IN honor of that parsonage. The very
bells in the old stone tower were hung
with red, white and green streamers,
and pendants Of the same colors fioated
In the nave Of the church. The people
came from far and near, the poorest
Indians from the distant hill tops and
the officials of the state government, and
all knelt before the altar. All were
clean and neat. 1t was a joyous day,
and all were happy.
Outside the church, and just inside the
stone gates of the yard, was an Indian
band, playing weird music, the music of
three centuries ago. The players m
ployed a sort of rude clarionet, and they
also had q drum, made of a hollow log,
about four feet high, with a sheepskin
drawn over the top. 1t gave forth,
under the enthusiastic poundings Of a
bright young Indian boy, most melan-
choly whoops. and, together with the
shrill music of the clarionets, was utterly
unlike anything ! had ever heard. But
even enthusiasm needs its dinner, and
one lad succeeded another, and 80 the
whooping of that mournful drum smote
upon the still air of the quiet town all the
day. A boy with a drum to pound is an
energetic chap; a boy with a yard to
rake clear of the debris of a New Eng
land winter is a lazy chap who casts
furtive glances at the street or his rabbit
pen.
! find the boys of Tlaxcala pretty
much what other boys are. They are
ready to work hard for pure fun. but
hard work is not to their mind. A
smiling, honest faced set Of lads, their
white teeth sparkling inside their red
lips. They have lots of bottled up fun
in them, and for a medic, Q Ia cents,
will run their legs off on pyramids for you.
Boys make the beds at the Hotel San
Francisco, and are chamber boys. as is
the custom here, where, even in the city
of Mexico. women do not work in the
hotels.
Saturday was also market day, and
the strangest men and women came
down from the surrounding limestone
hills, bringing little pigs oddly harnessed
no as to be driven along the roads, OBJ
stinate little quadrupeds who, once inside
the town, squeal loudly and persistently
90 Just where they think their drivers
don't wish them to 60. The Indian wo-
men from the hills wore bright colored
serapes for outer petticoats, and at night
they take these off for blankets. The
men were, for the most part, Of good
stature, bronzed, black eyed, with
that arrogant air the warlike
Tlaxcalans have always had; these
hill people don't forget that their
ancestors whipped the Aztecs up in the
valley of Mexico, and ] fancy they would
again willingly carry the stout cedar tim
bers across the hills TO the lake of Texcoco
to build ~brigantines for another Cortez.
They sell, under the sheds Of the market
place, rude pottery. many vegetables, in
Guiding the fiery chile peppers, and
serapes and rebosos. Under the near by
p~ortales. or arcades, some white men are
selling little German mirrors, buttons.
laces and toys. But l like best TO come
back to the market place to look at these
outlandish people from the mountain
sides and the deep interior valleys, where
they still worship, by stealth, their
ancient divinities. and make outward
profession of Christianity. Their language
flows softly, and l wish that | knew their
traditions and habits Of thought. for here
ia q race well worth the study Of a COM
petent ethnologist, who might preserve to
distant ages the history and customs Of
the arrogant Taxcalans who fought with
the Spanish conqueros.-Mexico Cor.
Boston Herald.